Saturday 29^th June 2024

Pre-Season Friendly at Cormack Park, Aberdeen

Formartine United 0 Peterhead 0

You’d never risk a bookie’s flutter that could obliterate your chances as an election hopeful on anything as fickle as information deriving from a pre-season friendly. Nevertheless this closed door event at the super standard, brand new Dons’ Facility at Cormack Park provided committee’s and adherents of both clubs some valuable insights to the thinking of the respective managers and the form of their players including a number of closed season signings.  There were absentees from both sides with powerhouse striker Paul Campbell and leading goal scorer Julian Wade for United along with veteran midfielder Dan Park and Kevin Hanratty.

However the starting eleven apart from Wade and Campbell was still on predictable enough lines and in all probability close to what the North Lodge faithful can anticipate in the coming season. That line up remained intact for the entire first 45 and against a fulltime team from League 2 performed to an encouragingly high standard.

It was the first outing of the season for each team and gave insight to their intended strategies. Peterhead had more possession and a measure of territorial advantage over United who provided an excellent counterfoil by restricting them space and movement soaking up pressure in an ordered controlled way and applying pressure enough at times their selves to threaten to pinch a result from their more illustrious opponents. Few would grudge them their draw.

The opening stages saw Peterhead forcing the pace particularly down the left side where Armour worked hard to impose his powers of searing acceleration to get the ball into the Formartine box that was stoutly defended by a back 4 of Crawford Smith, Maclean and Norris. Crawford was looking as sleek and slim as a racing stake and gave little cuttance to the speedy forward and the other defenders were astutely organised and limited the Blue Tooners to little of note, and keeper Macdonald was never seriously tested.

Last season United failed tocapitalise on title their serious title challenge by dropping points in somegames they might well have won save for some uncharacteristic defensiveblunders. On the evidence of this showing that risk now looks to be reduced andless likely to be repeated.

Playing just in front of the rearguard Tyler Mykyta made a very welcome return to United from Cove and showed all of his superb bag of tricks, including mazy dribbles from defence and an utterly outrageous attempt to catch keeper Oluyemi off his line with a 50 yard lob that all but grazed the bar on its way past. In midfield Lawrence got through a load of work in stifling opposition and new signing Scott Adams chased and harried up top and came close to making it a scoring debut with a thumping low drive that rebounded from the keeper’s left upright in the 32ndminute .

The interval marked a fairly dramatic change in a game which had until then been a an absorbing and closely contested encounter between one side that had the lion’s share of possession being very well managed by another that was impressively adept at denying them the space they needed to operate in.

United were able to introduce newcomer Callum Youngson to a new level of football after being a stand out in the Junior ranks with Hermes. He coped excellently with the step up and was a lively presence in midfield and looked comfortable on the ball at this level. However the use of subs in games of this nature can be as much about trying out new combinations, moves and blooding new signings as the exigencies of that particular game and this one became a litany of changes in approach and personnel by both sides as they pursued such agendas which is a large part of what pre-seasons friendlies are for and why some, like this one, are played in closed door conditions.

Teams

Peterhead: McKenzie (Oluyemi 45 min), Danny Strachan (Goldie 60 min),Jason Brown, Wilson, Armstrong, Forrest (Pawlett 60 min), McCarthy (Jack Brown60 min), Barry, Dunne (Seb Ross 60 min), Shanks (Smith 60 min), Armour.

Formartine United: Ewen Macdonald (Cameron Middleton: 46 min), JohnnyCrawford (Sam Thomson 75 min), Stuart Smith (Ryan Spink 56 min), MatthewMaclean, Aaron Norris, Marc Lawrence (Callum Youngson 56 min), Tyler Mykyta, GraemeRodger (Brodie Alberts 71 min), Scott Adams (Rhys Thomas 46 min), Aiden Combe(Arran Paterson 75 min), Scott Lisle.

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